Book Excerpt:

Bed & Breakfast Getaways from Cleveland

Doris Larson

Barn Inn

Spend a night in an old barn transformed into a Victorian inn.

While in Holmes Coun ty in late 1997, I noticed a new bed and breakfast, a red barn structure, just before the entrance to the Inn at Honey Run. I was curious because although the barn looked new, I could tell the foun dation had age. Innkeeper Loretta Coblentz welcomed me to the Barn Inn on that cold, dreary, late-November day with a cup of tea and some homemade cookies. We settled down in front of the slate fireplace and she described her search for a bed and breakfast property.

After living in Florida for 27 years, Hartville natives Loretta and Paul Coblentz decided to return to Ohio. They found this turn-of-the-century farmhouse and barn on County Road 203, between Berlin and Millersburg. As they were beginning to decide the decor of the guest rooms in the house, Loretta's mother came to visit, and when she saw the barn she suggested it would make a perfect bed and breakfast. The farm was once the Honey Run Dairy, site of a cheese-making company. Loretta and Paul had the vision to take this old barn and transform it into a Victorian inn.

From the time they started construction in January 1997 until they opened for business in September 1997, the Coblentzes, their family, and friends expended lots of elbow grease getting the place clean. They spent three weeks just scrubbing the original barn beams now visible in the interior of the barn. Loretta says folks asked how they did it. Her reply: oil soap, paring knives, razor blades, and toothbrushes. Once the barn was clean they encountered a problem typical of those faced when saving old farm buildings: sparrows had nested in the newly installed insulation. Since the windows were already in place, they had to figure out a way to get the sparrows to leave through the only openings—the doors.

As Loretta and I sat chatting in comfy chairs by the fire in the sitting room, where the ceiling height soars to 33 feet, I found it hard to imagine this space as a barn. But it was actually the third barn built on this site; the foundation is original to the first barn built prior to 1867. Now, the open area extends to a large dining table set for breakfast. Loretta serves a full country breakfast with farm-fresh eggs, smoked sausage, quiche, and apple dumplings one morning and perhaps Belgian waffles with real whipped cream the next. She makes her own bread and cookies, kept on the sideboard. The Coblentzes find that conversation flows readily when guests are gathered around the breakfast table.

When I first walked through the door of the Barn Inn, a bright quilt hanging over the railing of the open second floor caught my eye. I learned that Loretta not only made all the quilts in the guest rooms, but also taught quilting when she lived in Florida. Each room opens to a balcony that offers a pastoral scene of the upper Honey Run Valley. Chairs and sap buckets overflowing with flowers make the balcony an inviting place to sit and read a favorite book or do absolutely nothing.

A couple of my favorite rooms include a large room, the French Country, and a pleasant standard room, the Honey Run Hideaway. The French Country is a spacious yet warm room done in apricot and beige with an antique Louis XVI bed as the focal point. A loveseat facing a gas log fireplace, a whirlpool tub, and classic touches like the cherub frieze running along the bathroom wall make it a romantic retreat. On the lower level of the inn, there's a handicapped-accessible room, the Honey Run Hideaway, with a four-poster queen bed covered with one of Loretta's quilts in the Attic Window design.

Guests' comments after a stay at the Barn Inn include: “It was simply serene”; “the breakfast was awesome”; “I didn't want to go home.”

Things to do: It's refreshing to find a good working relationship between inns, and Loretta values her neighboring accommodation, the Inn at Honey Run (a short walk up the hill), where she often makes dinner reservations for her guests.

Loretta and Paul have Holmes County roots and can suggest day trips to Amish quilt and furniture shops on the back roads. Berlin, with its variety of shops and restaurants, is only 51 4 miles from the inn. The Coblentzes keep a running schedule of the farm auctions that take place in Mt. Hope.

Directions: I-77 to exit 83 for SR 39; west on SR 39;

right on CR 201; left on CR 203; on right

nearby attractions: Berlin shops,

Guggisberg cheese, Miller's Bakery, Rasketter's Woolen Mill,

Amish furniture shops, carriage shops, quilt shops, leather shops

Gray & Company, Publishers / 1588 E. 40th St., Cleveland, Ohio 44103 / 216-431-2665

www.grayco.com

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